What's planned
The site can already show how one college changed. These plans are about how college changed, across the country, and they come with a first look at the numbers, computed from the history already on the site:
- Test-optional went mainstream: two thirds of colleges required the SAT or ACT in fall 2019; one in twenty do now. Where tests became optional, the published SAT ranges rose about 30 points, because fewer students submit.
- Shrinking colleges: half of four-year colleges have at least a tenth fewer undergraduates than ten years ago. Large research universities and the most selective colleges grew instead.
- The price gap: what students actually pay fell 11% after inflation at the typical college, while full prices held. At the most selective colleges, it didn't fall at all.
- Students from other states: public colleges enroll more first-years from out of state than ten years ago, led by public research universities.
- The Pell graduation gap: Pell Grant recipients graduate about 11 points less often than classmates with neither a Pell Grant nor a subsidized loan, and the gap has widened.
- Top-10 lists: the colleges that changed most on each measure, with the rules that keep online programs and campus closures from crowding the lists.
- By athletic conference: a page for every conference, its members compared, how it changed, and who joined or left. SEC members' applications doubled in ten years.
- By state: a page for every state, with its colleges' trends, publics against privates, and where its students come from.
The national trends plan now ties these together: the shared method, the groups every study can be split by, where the pages live, and a list of further ideas.
Behind the scenes
- Specs live in
specs/trends/, one per study or page, and follow the hub's template: question, data, panel, first look, what readers see, computation, tests, open questions. - Every number will be computed by the history build and committed, with a test that recomputes it, so pages stay static and each figure traces to its source and years.
- The first-look numbers were produced on 2026-10-03 from the committed history shards; the specs record the panel rules used so they can be checked when built.